Holdfast Training Services Trial Blog

Well I have found the draft of my first blog attempt so here is take 2!

Firstly this project is HUGE!!!  Carillion are the lead contractors for Phase 1 of the £8 billion project to regenerate the power station and surrounding area.  They will be building 2 apartment blocks between 8 and 18 floors in the sliver of land between the power station and the railway line.  A good picture of it and explanation are here: http://www.costar.co.uk/en/assets/news/2012/December/Battersea-first-phase-powers-up/

They are going down 2 floors behind a cofferdam made from sheet piling hopefully without disturbing our neighbours-Network Rail and Mace in the power station.  It is basically Ex COFFERDAM on a massive scale!  (John you would be in heaven here!)  They have finished the cofferdam which is made of sheet piling to provide a cut off 1m into the London Clay which is around 8m below ground level and they are now welding the seams.  The main activity at the moment is piling the 1700 piles that will make up the raft of foundations!  They have around 3 piling rigs and a lot of excavators dancing around each other on the pretty confined site.

Here are some pictures of what is going on:

There are 3 main sub-contractors working on site: Appleton doing the sheet piling, Skansa Cementation doing the piling and O’Keefe seem to be doing everything else including excavations and drainage.  It is quite an unusual set up as there is another company Elliot Thomas who run the site allocation as it is such a large development and Mace are already working on Phase 2 which is the redevelopment of the power station itself.  We also have London Underground conducting borehole testing for the new station that will be built in the later phases.  As the lead contractors Carillion seem to be more of the project managers of the site at the moment.

So far it looks like I am going to take on the role of one of the Section Engineers and I get to look after Utilities going out/into the site (aka OIC power and shitters!).  We are looking to pipe jack a 375mm dia foul water pipe under Battersea Park Road into Thames Water’s existing sewer (and I need to get it adopted-glad I listened in the drainage lecture!).  I also need to get our high voltage cable hooked up to the mains by the 1st April otherwise we have to pay for the generators for longer.

So far they have had big issues with the weather on site as it is turning into a nice muddy puddle-including the piling mats.  They have had issues with the 6F2 material they have been using and the fines have been becoming a muddy slurry rather than a solid platform.  There is potentially some scope for a TMR along those lines.  I also attended a 4C’s meeting (something about Collaboration, Co-operation and some other C’s no-one seems to remember) which is basically a daily O Gp between the main contractor’s Foremen and Carillion.  I could not believe the amount of whinging they made about not having a smoking shelter down in the main working area and then the logistics and temporary works design (TWD) that went behind putting one up!  They even need to get a TWD to put up a barrier!  It is really Health and Safety to the max and I now really respect the fact that we can trust our soldiers not to throw themselves off the top of the excavation they have just dug.  I think they need a Sgt Major on site just to do the H+S patrol!

Anyway that is enough for my week 1 excitement I will attempt to put a few photos up and I will continue to chat up the guy from Mace to get a tour of the power station and trip up the chimney!